WordPress performance optimisation that drives conversions
A slow WordPress or WooCommerce site costs traffic, trust and sales.
We focus on the technical changes that make a measurable difference to how your site loads, responds and performs in the real world, from Core Web Vitals improvements to deeper WordPress and server-level optimisation.
Because better performance doesn’t just improve scores in an audit. It improves how users experience your website and whether they stay, convert, and come back.
Why performance matters
Website speed affects far more than load time.
Slow, unstable or jumpy pages increase drop-off, reduce conversions and can directly affect search visibility.
Google’s Core Web Vitals framework formalises what users already expect from a modern website: pages that load quickly, respond promptly and remain visually stable.
In practice, performance affects:
- conversion rate and user engagement
- rankings and crawl efficiency
- trust and credibility
- how easily the site can scale over time
A site that performs well is easier to grow, easier to optimise, and less likely to lose users before they take action.
Why should I speed up my WordPress website?
Optimising your WordPress website to meet the base requirements as specified in Google’s Core Web Vitals guidelines ensures that your website is:
1
Performant – fast to load, even on mobile devices browsing the web using cellular data
2
Receptive to input – able to take instructions straight away
3
Not distracting or jumpy – reducing visual movement and layout shift to prevent customers from losing their place
What we optimise
We look beyond surface-level fixes.
That means not just compressing a few images, but identifying where performance issues are actually coming from.
This typically includes:
- Page speed & load behaviour: how quickly key pages load and respond in real-world conditions
- Core Web Vitals: Core Web Vitals: improving load speed, responsiveness and visual stability across key pages
- WordPress & plugin performance: identifying slow themes, plugins, scripts and database bottlenecks
- Caching, assets & hosting setup: optimising delivery, server configuration and static assets
- WooCommerce & mobile performance: resolving speed issues that affect product pages, checkout and mobile users
How we approach optimisation
Performance work is led by Jem Turner and built around how your website is actually configured.
Every setup is different, so we don’t use one-size-fits-all recommendations.
Depending on what’s causing the slowdown, this may involve:
- full performance auditing
- plugin and theme review
- server-level configuration
- caching improvements
- code-level optimisation where needed
- clear prioritised actions for your team
The focus is always on changes that improve day-to-day performance, not just benchmark scores.
Further reading
Alternatively, you may be interested in reading some of Jem’s published work on WordPress performance:
- Read Jem’s Guide to WordPress Website Performance Auditing and Optimisation
- Read Jem Turner’s research on the five most common reasons why WordPress websites have performance issues.
- Check out Jem Turner’s 10 optimisations for a faster WordPress website
Book a performance audit
Fill out your details below to book a performance audit and optimisation plan with our development team.
Performance optimisation FAQ
I am running X plugins, does this mean my site will always be slow?
Sites with lots of plugins are not slow by default. In fact, the number of plugins doesn’t correlate with site speed at all, although it is often the case that badly developed websites have more plugins handling things that plugins shouldn’t be handling!
I’m running WooCommerce, I’ve heard that’s harder to optimise?
Ultimately Better have extensive experience optimising WooCommerce shops of all sizes; it’s no harder to optimise than any other website!
Why should I get you to optimise my WordPress website when I can just install a plugin to do it for me?
You can just install a WordPress plugin to do it for you, and you may see some improvements – but as with most generic plugins, it’s not going to be able to give you solutions to match your exact setup with your exact requirements (and sometimes might make things worse!)
Our WordPress performance solutions aren’t just an off the shelf plugin, we specifically tailor all our optimisations to each website.
How much does a performance audit and optimisation cost?
Our WordPress performance audits start at £350 + VAT. Once we have completed the audit, we will provide a written optimisation report with our recommendations for improving site speed, in priority order, including costs to complete the necessary actions if you wish to proceed.
I’d like to try and speed up my WordPress website myself, where should I start?
If you like to tinker or have tech skills you’re willing to put to the test, you can use Jem’s Guide to WordPress Auditing and Performance Optimisation to help you make improvements to your WordPress website speed.